She walks in Beauty, like the night
One shade the more, one ray the less,
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
Ode to a Special Friend • 07.25.05
When the raindrops slide slowly down your cheek, I am there
When you see the sun, rising on the ocean waters, I am there
When the solemn moon shines all about you, I am there.
When even you may come to lose your faith, I am there
The cool wind knows my aspect.
The sunshine knows my heart.
The waves that on the oceans roll
have seen my inmost parts.
But rams can rest in mountain caves.
As eagles nest in trees.
The hermit crab can take a shell,
But there’s no place for me.
And so I sing life’s bittersweet song,
Of sorrow and of strife.
I play my role; Yes I am here!
As long as I have life.
So see me in the starlight,
Hear me in a song.
And when I can here roam no more,
Only please dream on.
I give my heart, I dance for you,
But wonder, what for me?
And fear that I will yet play on,
Until eternity.
Why don’t I feel the soft rain?
Why sense I not the breeze?
It does not cool and calm my soul,
It only stirs the trees.
Psalm of Life – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • 07.25.05
WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN
SAID TO THE PSALMIST
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way ;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle !
Be a hero in the strife !
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead !
Act,— act in the living Present !
Heart within, and God o’erhead !
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time ;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
The above poem was first published in the Knickerbocker Magazine in October 1838.
It also appeared in Longfellow’s first published collection Voices in the Night. It can be found, for example, in:
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1893.
